March 2011

July 2008

07/31/2008

I know we are all busy and at times we just don't have time or resources to manufacture various parts for a project. The other day somebody mentioned MFG.com to me and recommended that I take a look at the site.

I knew MFG.com was an online marketplace where buyers and suppliers could bid on jobs but that was about all I knew. Over the years I have had a project on my mind that I need machined but don't have the tools to do it so I thought I would check out the process on MFG.com. In about fifteen minutes I created my profile and posted a part and drawing to start receiving quotes. It was a fairly quick process, they ask various questions such as type of material, manufacturing process and if the part requires an NDA. Shortly after I posted my part, a Customer Relations Specialist from MFG called to verify a few things on my quote. Over the next few days I received over a dozen quotes for my part that ranged from $80 - $720 from several countries. I would have to say the entire process has been very easy.

If you are interested if manufacturing parts for others or you need to have something manufactured for you, MFG could be a great tool to have in your back pocket.

In doing a little research on MFG.com, I found out that they have great backers such as Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon). If you take a look at MFG.com you will even see an ad to the Amazon Industrial site as well as links from Amazon to MFG.com.

If you try this out let me know what you think, I might just use this to build a few parts for an LED mountain bike light.

07/29/2008

Now available on Autodesk Labs! The Advanced Simulation Technology Preview for Autodesk® Inventor® 2009. This technology preview enables you to simulate, validate and optimize Inventor parts and assemblies so you can better understand the operating performance of your digital prototypes.

Download the Advanced Simulation Technology Preview and experience how it complements and improves existing Digital Prototyping workflows. The Advanced Simulation Technology Preview is available on Autodesk Labs at:

07/25/2008

If ever you have need to compare two drawings to determine the differences between them, take a look at the following video. You will notice Cliff was able to load two DWF files and compare the difference.

Cliff (Design Review team) put this great video together and I am guessing most of you didn't even realize this was possible in Design Review. I didn't even know we were able to do this until I met up with Cliff a few weeks ago and he showed me a few little tips like this.

If you haven't used Design Review for a while - save a DWF file from Inventor and check it out.

07/23/2008

Last episode we covered how you can create a skeleton through making a sketch and using derived components. This episode we will take it one step farther and use Productstream/Vault to make a unique copy which will allow us to make modifications to each copy of the skeleton model. This is a very powerful way to make a deep copy from the skeleton to drawings as well as specify where it will be saved.

07/17/2008

The 2D to 3D tool has now been updated for 64-bit computers. If you have tried to install it in the past on a 64-bit version of Vista or XP you know that it wasn't available. The labs team just released a new version of the 2D to 3D tool that will install and work on both a 32-bit and 64-bit operating system.

If you aren't familiar what the 2D to 3D tool does, below is a brief description.

You can open an AutoCAD 2D DWG into an Inventor part file similar to the one you see below.

Switch over to the 2D to 3D Tools panel and select "Chose Base View" to start orienting the 2D geometry to the correct location. In this case I selected the Front view of the 2D sketch geometry first to project it onto the base face.

From there you can select Identify Projected View and select the right and top view to project the other two views in the correct location. There are align tools to help align views if necessary.

In this example I then extruded the front view to a point in the back. I then created a second extrusion with the side view using the Intersect option from extrude to remove unwanted material from the first extrusion. The third extrusion from the top view was also with the Intersect option to cut the slot and chamfer edges.

If you have a lot of 2D drawings that you would like to convert to 3D models, this is a great tool to help you easily convert them.

07/09/2008

The concept of a skeleton model is a powerful method to have a single sketch drive multiple parts. This is a very robust way to set up relationships between parts and assemblies that doesnt require adaptivity or projecting edges and maintain a relationship.

This episode we see how a sketch is created and used in a skeleton model to maintain the relationship between components.

07/07/2008

Have you taken a look at Design Review lately? For those of you that aren't familiar with Design Review, you might recall an option in Inventor to Publish a file called DWF. This creates a light weight single file that can include assemblies, parts, drawings and animations from a presentation file. This is a great way to share your design with others that don't have Inventor or during a design review would like to capture red-lines electronically. Design Review is used to view 2D and 3D DWF files as well as a host of other things such as section, pull apart and change visibility of 3D parts and assemblies.

Today I spent a little time with the Design Review team and learned a few things that I thought I would pass your way. They have a site that has several videos they update regularly that is worth taking a look at. One of their videos shows how to make animated 3D assembly instructions in Inventor and publish them to a DWF.

One of the lesser known tools in Design Review 2009 (I didn't know about this one until today) is the compare tool. You can open a DWF file in Design Review with a drawing and select Compare from the Tools pull-down and select a second DWF to compare for any difference. It will highlight any differences between the two files similar to the image below (notice the swing arm isn't in both files).

My understanding is that they will be adding a video to show this in the near future.

If you have never used Design Review, publish a DWF from one of you assemblies to see how easy it is to share your models with others. If you have Inventor loaded on your machine, you should already have Design Review installed. If you want to share a DWF with others, they can download Design Review for free and view any DWF you send them.